Procrastination definitely has its value. Even when you are not actively working on a talk, your brain is mulling over ideas, say, for engaging and informative graphics to support an idea on slide 4. The last-minute pressure can push a geyser of ideas up from a brewing underground well. Sometimes that geyser feels a lot like food poisoning. (Anyone else feel anxious and nauseous after the sliders at the welcome reception?)
Procrastination is a hard way to go, sometimes. The late night panic when you realize your talk isn't halfway done (or even started, sometimes, right Steve?) is rough on the stomach lining. I can't help but think, would it really have been so much worse if I had just gotten more done yesterday? Or any of the 100 afternoons since July 1? Well, yesterday, I wasn't inspired, so maybe.
Jorge Cham, of the popular PhD Comics on graduate school (PhD standing for "Piled Higher and Deeper") often sings the praises of the virtue of procrasting. Sometimes the deep desire to avoid something pushes us to extraordinary lengths to justify putting off the task at hand. "I have to put off writing that talk this week: there's this other idea over here, and I really have to work on it NOW...."
To be honest, my neural network based project ("Training Neural Networks to See Missing Information") sprang from a primal need to avoid another project. In the end, my little "distraction" turned out to be the most beautiful piece of research I've worked on so far: it's interesting to a very broad group of people, it's different, and there is potential to inspire others to a number of new projects. Can I say that about every talk I've given? No way. Maybe Jorge Cham needs to be the entertainment at the 2013 DNP meeting. Then again, he might prefer an invitaiton for the 2014 meeting-- when it is in Hawaii.
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